"The best stories, in my belief, are the stories that take you by the hand and lead you through their pages. The stories that force your attention to their pages, and leave you wanting more than their words alone can bestow upon your mind and soul."
The black-clad figure sighed in leisure as he leaned back in his chair. He tapped his quill against the wood of the slanted writing desk for a moment, then set back to writing.
"As much as it may pain me to speak of my undoing, something, someday, must be told to anyone who will listen. My tale is not yet ended, but something tells me it will never cease to find its way into the ears of eager beings awaiting an epic legend. For all who would lend me the time, and for all who I've failed to say goodbye to when I had the chance, here is my tale..."
The night was infinitely dark on Asgard. It swallowed any remnant of laughter and festival from earlier in the day, covering the landscape with the smog of night. The houses lay nestled together, each one clad with its respective family crest, the peeks of the rooftops only barely breaching the top of the dark where thin rays of light still lingered.
A form detached itself from the mass of dark slowly coming nearer towards the rainbow bridge. Now more towards the light, you could almost make out a vague humanoid shape sprinting towards the Bifrost at full speed. Behind the figure, more shapes came through the dark steadily gaining on the first figure. Both groups continued their rapid advance through the regal city, nearing the bridge.
Loki could barely breathe he had run so far for so long. Yet, here he was running for his life, again, with an army of guards on his tail. His wispy black hair was plastered to the back of his neck, much to his annoyance. The rest of his ragged clothes were stuck to him as well, but now wasn't the time to give into simple annoyances. He had depleted most of his magic to make it this far, and he had to save his energy. Sparing a glance behind him, he found the guards much too close for his liking, and sped up a little just as he reached the threshold of the bridge.
Conserve your energy. You will make it.
He slowed only enough to make it to the Bifrost in time so the guards couldn't reach him. As he entered the globe-like room, he stopped for breath for at that time he had started heaving for air. Sucking in as much as he could, he called forth upon his magic, and released wave after wave of green florescent energy around his being. Blinding green light burst from his hands and filled up the room just as the armored guards caught up. The palace protectors had to shield their eyes from the intense light, and some were knocked back from the force.
As the light dimmed, they could make out the form of the trickster, his flashing green eyes, and his maniacal smile as he flashed out of existence before them. While the smoky green light faded away, the last rays of sun filtered out from the shining city of Asgard.
"I am getting a bit ahead of myself, aren't I? This did not start with me escaping, but in fact started with me taking the throne. It was a rash move to ensure that I could stay in my home, and still be accepted. Also the power was good. Very good. But it is not the point. I shouldn't have taken the throne, but what choice did I have? I had begun to realize what my brother meant to me only too late. I had planned on telling him the truth sometime, I suppose. At least I thought I did. Until things became too complicated."
He shifted in his seat, too uncomfortable with his side, already trickling blood down his side. The pain was bearable. But not for much longer. He had to continue, and finish if at all possible. Everyone had to know.
"I should have told him I faked my death. I should have just went peacefully. I could have been pardoned. I could have had my life back. After everything I'd gone through, I no longer cared that I would never be king. It wasn't for me. It was never for me. But I did do those things, and i was caught..."
Loki was led into the giant antechamber of the throne room. He walked with his head up and chest out, but still respectfully, like a prince. There was no righteous gleam in his eye, only submissiveness. There were no tricks to be had on this day. He was dressed in simple garments, black pants, and his normal leather attire, but he didn't have chains constricting him.
"Loki Odinson," Loki inwardly cringed at his father's use of name, "you are here to be charged with treason by the high council. You will have time to defend yourself, then a verdict will be reached. You may speak."
Odin sat back in his mighty golden throne and sighed. This is not how things were supposed to be. He should not be doing this now. He should not be condemning his son again.
Loki stared silently up at his father and ruler, and glanced back at his mother before putting his hands up in resignation. He could feel the surprised stares boring into him and he studied the patterns in the marble on the floor. He dared not look up to meet anyone's eye.
"Will you not defend yourself? If you do not, the council will convene and sentence you within the hour based on what we solely know to be true."
The court stilled and became silent. Some pulled forward in their seats to get a good look and looked on expectantly at the prisoner. Loki still breathed not a word.
"Very well. This council is adjourned henceforth to take action upon one so named as traitor to the Realm Eternal," the kind stood and Loki finally looked up,"dismissed." With a boom of Odin's declaration, Loki was lead away again, and the council began to get up and stretch their legs while murmuring about the sudden change of events.
Odin sighed again and slammed Gungnir on the ground to end the short hearing.
Led in a slow procession out of the door to the throne room and into the holding cells in the dungeon, Loki studied the group of men surrounding him as opponents rather than guards. They walked slowly in the uncomfortable calm that surrounded them. When they reached the midway point Loki made his decision, and laid out the plan.
The group of six men were suddenly barraged by flashes of black clothing and white skin. Fists flew in all directions and non of the guardsmen knew where he was coming from, or how many of him there were.
"He's using his copies to fight!" a stocky ginger yelled to the rest of them.
"Formation! Hold!" the ginger yelled at his men and they immediately collapsed back into a ring of spears to ward off Loki's attacking doppelgängers.
After a few successful stabs of lances in the right direction and at the right time, Loki was left with only two copies. The guards were gallantly fighting off the copies, while the real Loki was sprinting at full speed back up through the floors to the top of the palace and to freedom.
When all of the fake princes were dissipated into dust the guards stood still until they figured out what the trickster had done, and ran towards the rainbow bridge.
The usually bright green grass flowed a little darker under stormy skies as clouds quickly formed. A huge cylinder of light came rocketing out of the sky and landed in the middle of the large rock formations, shaking the ground like an earthquake. A dark form became visible from the clearing smoke, but did not move. Birds flew back to their perches. Bugs again crawled the ground. Tree leaves fluttered less and less until stopping. Everything was again still and calm.
Hours went by through the dusk, night, then early daybreak came right when the sun's rays just barely reached the top of the rolling hills. Erik Selvig climbed his favorite perch and set his binoculars to his preferred setting and sat down with his equipment. He breathed a long sigh of relief and drank out of a flask. Hunched forward, looking through his binoculars, he studied the sky around the Stonehenge, and wrote down a few sets of numbers. Then he methodically went through all of his equipment and noted the levels of radiation, chemicals, and nano particles in the air. After taking all of his data, he sat back and stared at the beautiful rock formation in front of him. He loved the way the rocks were lined up in their peculiar fashion, and the vibrancy of the color, even after thousands of years they still shone stunningly in the morning light. He breathed in the fresh air and watched the clouds form and reform, and disappear again. He eventually fell asleep.
A high pitched screaming dragged him out of his peaceful slumber and he vaguely realized that the tourists had arrived.
Agh. Why do they always have to bring the toddlers? It disturbs the peace of the place. If only they knew how amazing it was they'd stop taking selfies by the rocks and actually learn something. Agh.
Selvig lifted his tired head and looked down at the stones to see... not what he expected. There was a boy and a girl, no older than mid twenties poking a dark form with something that looked like a stick. He got up and made his way down the hill, and as he got closer he noticed the girl holding a camera tripod poking at a bundle of cloth in the very middle of the Stonehenge. Surrounding them was what looked like giant crop circle, but Erik stopped short. He knew enough from the past few years to know that wasn't a crop circle at all. That was Asgardian.
The girl was holding back the boy while he shook a little and screamed things to her. As he began to jog a little, fearing something bad had happened, he could pick up their conversation.
"Please! Stop touching it! What if it wants to probe us?! You'll only make it mad! I don't wanna be probed!" the boy screamed at the girl.
"Shut up! This could be the find of a lifetime if we can document it and get it published. We could have our own office! Our own firm even!" the girl excitedly shouted back at him.
Erik came to a stop beside the startled siblings and ripped the tripod out of the girl's hands and threw it away.
"Stop it! Stop it now! And-and stand back!" he commanded the siblings.
He was replied with shocked stares and slack jaws.
"Aren't you the crazy scientist guy?" the girl asked him.
"Well. Yes. Yes I am. And you should go now because... because this is one of my experiments gone wrong! Yes! And it could come back to life any moment and devour us all! Ooooooooooohhhhaaaaahhhhh!" Erik quickly improvised to scare the kids away.
The girl stood there looking slightly bored and her brother let off a blood curdling scream like the one that woke Selvig up.
"Please go away. Please. This is... very important to my research, and if i have civilians wandering around, well, you know..." he ended lamely trying to make them go away.
"No, I think we're going to stay for this one gramps, what do you say Jami?" the girl said back as she held on to her brothers shirt collar to keep him from running off.
She gave her best innocent smile and let out a small, "Please?"
She really didn't have to though, because the crazy scientist was already walking away, distracted by the now shifting black cloth on the ground.
"This, this is incredible. How did I miss this earlier?" he stooped low and peeled away some of the cloth covering the form, and scrambled back from the sight he saw.
There was complete silence from the brother and sister as they all stared wide-eyed at the person on the ground before them.
"...Loki?" came the breath from the scientist.
From somewhere behind Selvig, a camera flash went off, and the boy screamed again.
A/N: I refuse to write a lot on these, so I'll keep it short and sweet. This is either going to be a short two, maybe three, shot about the storyline after thor 2, or i'm going to get sucked into a huge story. It all depends on how you guys react to this, and if you want more. Just throw me a review. Doesn't have to be fancy. And, enjoy :)